James Conroy presents "A (Tentative) Genealogy of Stupidity"

• Date: Wednesday, March 20
• Time: Noon-1:30 p.m.
• Location: Aderhold Hall Room G23

James C. Conroy, professor of philosophical and religious education at the University of Glasgow will present his work in progress, “A (Tentative) Genealogy of Stupidity.”

Claritas. The dry-eyed Latin word
Is perfect for the carved stone of the water
… Lines
Hard and thin and sinuous represent
The flowing river. Down between the lines
Little antic fish are all go. Nothing else.
And yet in that utter visibility
The stone’s alive with what’s invisible.

In these lines from his poem “Seeing Things,” Seamus Heaney captures the need to recognise that the apparently invisible sits at the very heart of the visible. And often what is invisible in public conversation and education is similarly in plain view, if only we can look into the deep downess of things and past the fearful shibboleths of social class, false respect, and liberal sentiment. This paper, a work in progress, explores the concept of stupidity; a concept that is often associated with bland insult and pejoration, but which is much more complicated etymologically and politically than is often assumed. It tentatively argues that liberal education has been so fearful of naming stupidity, which sits in plain sight, that it has failed to understand its power and import in modern liberal discourse. Here I want to suggest that the epistemic conditions of 21st century life conduce to the maintenance of stupidity and that education has a significant responsibility for this in an era where the global spend on education has grown inexorably. I also wish to resurface and reinvigorate some modest, if traditional strategies for challenging stupidity.